One Question on Black AIDS Day: Do We Care Enough To End It?
More than a million Americans are currently living with HIV/AIDS, and roughly half of them are black. This is one of the most striking disparities in public health, and today is National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, meant to draw attention to it. I’ve written about HIV here and abroad for many years, and there’s much to say on the who, what and why of this disparity. Suffice to say, HIV preys upon poverty worldwide, so no surprise that when a quarter of black Americans are living in poverty, HIV infection rates are so high.
As with many things in public health, the data that’s supposed to help us understand the challenges can be overwhelming. But I’ve long felt there’s one chart that most clearly explains the narrative of the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic, and says everything about the challenges we now face. It’s below, and it shows AIDS diagnoses over the course of the epidemic. In the late 1990s, right about when taxpayer-developed lifesaving drugs hit the market and America declared victory over HIV, the epidemic split: Black diagnoses continued climbing as a share of overall diagnoses, while white diagnoses plummeted. In other words, in the part of America where people had access to care, the epidemic changed dramatically; elsewhere, it didn’t.
This year marks 30 years since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control first reported cases of the condition scientists would eventually identify as AIDS. Colorlines will be reporting on and talking about that unhappy anniversary all year, and in many cases in partnership with the Black AIDS Institute, an organization I worked with for many years. Today, the Institute released its latest State of AIDS in Black America report, which you can find [by clicking the official website's link after the source]. It’s take-home: the Obama administration’s crafting of America’s first overarching strategy for dealing with the epidemic was a huge victory last year, but that victory is meaningless if Congress and the administration don’t now fund and implement that strategy.
There are many, complex factors driving the black AIDS epidemic, from the much discussed stigma to the much less discussed basic access to meaningful health care. We’ll be parsing these throughout the year. But in the end, as the graph above suggests, today’s epidemic is also shaped dramatically by one factor: whether our government takes it seriously enough to end it, in all parts of our society.
Source & Official Website of Black AIDS Day.
Sorry to go from such an epic/fun post (which is still going strong, so keep contributing!) to such a depressing one so quickly.
Previously this month: Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four, Day Five, Day Six
More than a million Americans are currently living with HIV/AIDS, and roughly half of them are black. This is one of the most striking disparities in public health, and today is National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, meant to draw attention to it. I’ve written about HIV here and abroad for many years, and there’s much to say on the who, what and why of this disparity. Suffice to say, HIV preys upon poverty worldwide, so no surprise that when a quarter of black Americans are living in poverty, HIV infection rates are so high.
As with many things in public health, the data that’s supposed to help us understand the challenges can be overwhelming. But I’ve long felt there’s one chart that most clearly explains the narrative of the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic, and says everything about the challenges we now face. It’s below, and it shows AIDS diagnoses over the course of the epidemic. In the late 1990s, right about when taxpayer-developed lifesaving drugs hit the market and America declared victory over HIV, the epidemic split: Black diagnoses continued climbing as a share of overall diagnoses, while white diagnoses plummeted. In other words, in the part of America where people had access to care, the epidemic changed dramatically; elsewhere, it didn’t.
This year marks 30 years since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control first reported cases of the condition scientists would eventually identify as AIDS. Colorlines will be reporting on and talking about that unhappy anniversary all year, and in many cases in partnership with the Black AIDS Institute, an organization I worked with for many years. Today, the Institute released its latest State of AIDS in Black America report, which you can find [by clicking the official website's link after the source]. It’s take-home: the Obama administration’s crafting of America’s first overarching strategy for dealing with the epidemic was a huge victory last year, but that victory is meaningless if Congress and the administration don’t now fund and implement that strategy.
There are many, complex factors driving the black AIDS epidemic, from the much discussed stigma to the much less discussed basic access to meaningful health care. We’ll be parsing these throughout the year. But in the end, as the graph above suggests, today’s epidemic is also shaped dramatically by one factor: whether our government takes it seriously enough to end it, in all parts of our society.
Source & Official Website of Black AIDS Day.
Sorry to go from such an epic/fun post (which is still going strong, so keep contributing!) to such a depressing one so quickly.
Previously this month: Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four, Day Five, Day Six
Edited at 2011-02-08 12:07 am (UTC)
Black people are felons. We can't vote because we're felons. We can't read so we couldn't vote even if we wanted to. We have too many babies. Our kids are stupid. We're stupid. We're dark. No one wants us. Our hair is ugly. We have no credit. Most of the men are gay. All of the men are homophobes. We have AIDS. We don't travel. We're psycho Christians. Prop 8 is our fault. We're fat. We drop dead from heart attacks at random. LOL fake hair! We have no heritage. We negatively impact society through our jungle music. The men rape white women. The women are men therefore cannot be raped. We're not as grateful as the ~fairy folk~ of Native Africa. We only want iPods. We are the cockroaches of the human race.
What else is new? Really. Tell me more!
I'm just happy I haven't heard some variation of "why is there no white history month? What if there was a waacp or white united college fund?" today.
And then the next story was, "Barack is president, because lots of white people voted for him! RACISM'S OVER!" ....what? At that point I threw up my hands, and gave up on TV news networks (back when I had cable).
Also, don't forget that every good and positive thing Blacks do is attributed to white "behavior". Like we can't just be intelligent and amazing just because, no. It's "white influence!". =\
I bought Wayne's World from this offer:
a special appearance from Color Me Badd? Killer. I'll have to see if I can pick this up.
(I don't buy it but a few of my relatives do.)
AND THE SCORES FOR HIS FILMS ARE FUCKING PERFECTION!
Edited at 2011-02-08 12:35 am (UTC)
I lol'd.
Both kinds!
I'll hate Reagan forever for his shitty response to AIDS. Fucker.
Though watching the clip of Lucy and Ricardo interacting in that drunk clip made me CRINGEBTW, was your default icon Michelle Obama in a green dress? I generally memorize users by their icons then by their names (Unless it's purple indicating I browsed their profile).
I hope they pull their heads out of their own butts soon.
I never trust HIV rate statistics. I used to, but after I heard one lady's story, I don't.
I went to four or five different high schools. I wanted to graduate early, but some had different programs than others, and I wanted them all. Some promised to graduate kids faster than others too, but these turned out to be the slowest, most poorly-organised programs for graduation there were at the time. So I just "shopping" for schools. Most of them were funded by abstinence-only groups.
My last school was the "worst" one. Daily gangfights that even the cops wouldn't touch, no funding, scores so low the state's been threatening to take over for years, after-school literacy programs so desperately needed being cut, the whole nine yards. These were the poorest kids in the city, many selling drugs just to feed younger brothers and sisters. Some dropped out to get those same siblings to school with the hopes that they'd graduate one day. The military recruited there hard, knowing a lot of kids would have little choice but to sign up if they ever wanted to go to college. Abstinence-only education dangled lots of nice cash over that schools' collective heads- how many books it could buy! How it could put more money into sports! How GREAT it would be!
In the end, the decision was up to the school nurse. We only had one, as far as I knew, compared to other (white) schools that had two or three rotating. She declined abstinence-only education. She was one of the lovely people who knew that the choices made sexually would define a class of people for the rest of their lives. Whether or not they had kids early could predict whether or not some of them graduated, or if they would attend college, or if they would catch a debilitating disease that would cripple them for life. All of this based on whether or not they had a chance at decent sex ed.
Her best friend had been diagnosed with AIDS recently. Not HIV. AIDS. She had been asymptomatic for years and years, until one day she got the flu and almost died. She had married young to a guy that she loved, and had stayed with him for years. She believed in being monogamous and faithful, and stayed true to that. Her husband, however, did not. She had no idea until she got sick and found out she'd gotten it from her husband. If someone who had "always done things right" could get HIV/AIDS, so could a group of people with little access to prophylactics and virtually no sex education whatsoever.
I have no idea how many people she got through to during her three-day classes, but I do know that statistics can't be trusted. If they could, how do asymptomatic people fit in? How do people who have never been tested show up?
If we're supposed to believe in the "black AIDS epidemic" (which I have no doubt somewhat exists, considering the overwhelming poverty problem which prevents people from doing things like buying condoms instead of food, or taking a day off work to get tested at a health centre, or from being able to PAY for testing to begin with), why hasn't our government done what we did with polio or rabies? Pour money into eradicating the disease through REAL sex education, free access to condoms and birth control, ensure free STD testing in every state, and make HIV less of a stigma and more of an awareness? The only time I ever see AIDS-awareness commercials are on Logo or public transit, talking about how the majority of the afflicted are gay... which could set the impression still today that only gay people can get the disease, and scare off straight men from getting tested lest they be perceived as teh ghey.
We have the ability. Why not the ambition?
Did you even read the article?
The government CAN do so much about AIDS in general- but they aren't. No, we'd rather put money into funding legislation that kills women. To me, HIV/AIDS isn't a "black" problem. It's an American problem, just like rabies and polio and cholera once were. It's disturbing to see so little attention given to this issue, despite all the science and facts we have about the disease. This isn't 1978. This isn't the GRID era anymore. This isn't a disease relegated to gay musicians and black people of any ancestry in science anymore. Viruses don't discriminate, and neither should we. I kind of wonder whether or not these people realise how many of us marry inter-racially? Not all of us are really white, even if we look white on the outside. (Seriously, how does a really white guy with red hair and a really white lady with blonde hair have a dark-skinned son with poofy black hair? Because that's my dad's situation. LOL.)
I think AIDS stats might be higher all across the board, though, since I think there are entire groups untargeted by awareness adverts and who lack funding. In recent years, it isn't just PoC that aren't going to get tested for a variety of reasons. I can't tell you how many straight white guys who once had plenty of money to get tested, but never did. Why? They still thought that only gay or black people get AIDS. So how do we count people who have never been tested? Or people who are asymptomatic and therefore didn't even think about getting tested?
I'm wondering how the trend would differ if testing was mandatory for everyone in, say, 12th grade or something, the way certain vaccines are mandatory to enter school. It wouldn't cover everyone, but considering how many people have sex before 18, it would help cover more people. This would be paid for with taxpayer money. I would be happy for taxes to go up by 1% if it meant knowing that everyone 17-18 was tested just once and given better sex ed. Even by federal poverty standards, my family is dirt-poor. Food is a weekly issue, and the only reason we keep the internet is for work-related stuff. Even then, I would be happy to pay more if it meant better healthcare for the people who need it most. It has a dual purpose: show which communities are hit hardest by AIDS, and maybe, just maybe, see if more white people than expected have HIV/AIDS... and maybe use that to scare some more money into clinics and better education. No more of this "only gay/poc people get AIDS" bullshit. ::sighs:: I doubt it would work, though.